Pictures of You

The Neue Galerie is the most stylish museum in New York. I spend a fair amount of time in its Cafe Sabarsky, and recently ventured upstairs to view the (now closed) special exhibition, Portraits of an Age: Photography in Germany and Austria, 1930-1938. The permanent collection there is small but exquisite, and yields new pleasures on each visit. I always begin each experience there.

This time, I was astonished to notice Klimt's The Black Feather Hat over the grey marble fireplace in a second-floor gallery -- having nurtured a minor recent obsession with that particular work, how did I not ever notice it there before?

Bluish undertones in the painting lend a somber elegance to the painting in person, as does the downcast gaze of its subject. She appears to have no party to go to, this extraordinary woman; then again, where could she possibly go that could provide suitable company for one so attired in such a glorious chapeau?

The gallery of works on paper by Egon Schiele (as well as a few by Klimt, and a couple of other artists working in a complementary if not similar vein; e.g. Kokoshka) is perfectly presented, with its shades of grey, green, brown and silver on the walls, floor, and ceiling, and a barely noticeable inverted-dome drop chandelier, dripping (in a reserved fashion, of course) with crystals and brass leaves as the perfect finishing touch.

Schiele's portrait of young collector Erich Lederer caught my eye (as did a similar portrait of the same subject in Amsterdam) - who is this barely older than teenage boy collecting outre art? Also, he is very fond of that overcoat, as it seems to show up in more than one painting. I also liked a 1912 unfinished self-portrait that embodies the devilish charm Schiele would have had to rely on to to escape from some of the shady situations he often found himself in according to accounts of his short but tumultuous life.

The work by Schiele that I absolutely most adored on this particular visit was of a mother and child, she, beautifully realized and sloe-eyed with raven curls tumbling down her back and black stockings, and a barely discernable (in an unappealing way) infant grasping at her hip. It was classically grotesque and sexy in that sense that Schiele seemed to perfectly capture as an artist working in an era particularly suited to that perspective.

In the same gallery, I was also struck by Alfred Kubin's 1900 charcoal-y drawing of Mother Earth, rotundly pregnant and confidently tossing seeds as she strides forward, a path of skulls falling away in the fading darkness behind her. Could there be a more poetic depiction of life's cruel fairness? I doubt it.

Next: Portraits of an Age.

Comments

[blacksnail]

Thanks for turning me onto Alfred Kubin – looked him up on artcyclopedia and then Amazon –he wrote a book pre WWI and it looks to be out of this world interesting.

[Editor]

Glad you discovered Kubin, Adam! His work is really quite extraordinary. I couldn't find a good picture of the piece is question online, but here is a nice critical essay with additional insight on Kubin's influences and the context in which he exerted them.

-LC